


in waiting

by freckliephil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 08:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17464214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckliephil/pseuds/freckliephil
Summary: "So Dan won’t come in to the room as Dan, and Phil feels like Phil for the first time in a really long time, and the bed sheets are on the floor, where they’ll probably remain for weeks. There’s no other place for them in this weird, confusing waiting room that stands between who they were, who they are, and the rest of their careers as some version of all of it mixed together."





	in waiting

Dan has never been one to thrive in the calmness that can come with waiting for things. 

Phil knows this. He knows that when the world gets too quiet it seems bigger, behind Dan’s eyes, too big to care too much about anything, but still not big enough to not care. There’s no give and take, no calming wave that envelopes and takes away the doubt with the stillness of processing. Processing is hard, for both of them, but more so for Dan. It always has been. 

Phil likes calm. He likes the way it washes over him and guides him to make the decisions that he can’t make, the change that he won’t embrace until it takes him. 

“All or nothing,” Dan teases him, sometimes, when the wounds aren’t as fresh from the constant ripping back of band aids and spritzing of lemon juice, “You’re just as much of a perfectionist as I am, just…”

“Differently.” Phil supplies, adjusting his hair in the mirror, or stripping the Amazingphil sheets from the bed that has never belonged to him or to them, supplying, instead, a safe place for an alter ego he’d never intended to create. 

Quiet is good. It comes before a storm, where Phil is concerned. With Dan, it is the storm. 

He paces and he bites his lips raw and his fingernails become ragged and worn almost bloody. Phil offers to paint them, to hold his hand or to kiss his lips, anything to pull him from the place he goes when the world won’t stimulate him enough. Phil offers to cook him breakfast or lures him into bed with feather light touches and a little too much flirting, anything to lose themselves in routine. 

Phil says, “you’re thinking too loud”, and Dan replies with, “you’re one to talk,” and the conversation dies on both of their lips as they sink back into the places where they can never fully reach each other. And that’s okay, sometimes: that they retreat. That they’re not perfect, alone or as a couple. They’ve stopped letting themselves drown in their flaws a long time ago, choosing instead to be settled in being human. 

Breaks are good for them, and so is the discomfort that comes with stillness. The desire to move drives Dan to create and it drives Phil to feel. Change comes, not silently or easily, but it comes in those moments of waiting.

\---

“Something is missing.” 

The words smack into the back of Phil’s head, pulling him from where he’s standing in the middle of a bedroom that has never been his, surrounded by things that haven’t represented him for a long, long time. 

He’d been deep in thought, calculating and feeling and letting the change take him.  
“From what?” Phil asks, whipping his head around to face Dan. 

He’s standing in the doorway, pajama pants and an over sized jumper. The way he hovers, hand barely resting on the door frame and socked feet pointedly planted on the other side, feels intentional. He doesn’t like coming in to this room if he doesn’t have to--not as Dan, at least. He’ll come in as the other half of Dan and Phil, voice pitched up a notch and his tongue sharp but careful, because that’s who this room was made for. 

It should be confusing for them, the ways that they shift and transform all the time, but it actually ends up feeling more normal than a lot of the other stuff they do. It all comes back to the same thing--the comfort in being human, and whatnot. 

So Dan won’t come in to the room as Dan, and Phil feels like Phil for the first time in a really long time, and the bed sheets are on the floor, where they’ll probably remain for weeks. There’s no other place for them in this weird, confusing waiting room that stands between who they were, who they are, and the rest of their careers as some version of all of it mixed together. 

“I don’t know,” Dan says.

And he’s being cryptic. It’s not a surprise, but it’s also not the best thing for Phil’s mental state. 

“You came all the way over here,” Phil starts, feeling a smile creep up onto his face, regardless of the tension, “to tell me that something is missing from something, and you don’t even know what it’s missing from?” 

Dan is also smiling. “Does that surprise you?” 

“No,” Phil says. “But it does annoy me a little bit.” 

“That’s fair.” 

And then Dan steps into the room, reaching out for contact. Phil drops the plushie he’d been contemplating, opting instead to open his arms wide to the man who he loves so deeply that he’d listen to him ramble on and on about nothing, about “something missing” until his ears bleed, because he’d do anything in the world for Dan and for them and for himself. That’s where he’s at. 

“I tried writing a script.” Dan says, once Phil’s arms wrap around him completely. 

Phil hums, tempted to ask how it went as though he doesn’t know exactly what the answer to that question would be. 

“Something missing?” Phil asks instead.

Dan nods against his neck, hair tickling his skin, and he feels the way Dan’s lungs fill with air and then release it, and he gives in to the urge to squeeze just a little bit tighter, to hold his person a little bit closer, because change is scary and the unknown is scarier, but Dan is familiar despite all of it. 

Dan is constant and solid, warm and so, so devoted to Phil. He’s overwhelming and almost too much for Phil to handle sometimes, a storm that rages quietly next to the chaos of Phil’s own mind, but he’s also the most reliable, stable thing. A secure base, a safety net, the anchor, whatever he’s calling it that day, Dan is there, next to him, always. 

“We’ll figure it out.” Phil says, speaking the words into the universe like they always do, affirmations dripping from their mouths constantly. It’s something they both do, something they both need. 

Dan lets out a soft sigh, burrowing his head further into Phil’s neck, seeking the same comfort that Phil is. They’re both trying to find answers in their togetherness to solve the problems they have to sometimes face alone. 

“We will,” Dan says, then, softly, “change is good.” 

He’s right. They both know it. Dan will come out on the other side with something he’s proud of, and Phil will ride the waves of change as far as they’ll take him, and then the stillness will fade and the waiting will end, and the promise of newness and excitement will carry them far enough to get somewhere.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! comments are always lovely and if you wanna come say hi over on tumblr i'm @freckliephil over there too! <3


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